As Meaningless as a Mudblood
by herointhecrowd
Summary: We all knew Ron had the audacity to laugh at a very unfunny thing, but maybe this time he has a point. Maybe it really is just a word. Post-Mansion catastrophe oneshot, as Cannon as I can write.


_**First of all, yes I realize it seemed like I had fallen off the face of the Earth with my writing. I know I know, I'm a terrible human being blahh blahh blahh. Not really sure why I wasn't writing. But here I am again:)**_

_**And just because I know you're expecting me to beg for reviews, I shant give you the satisfaction…**_

_**Even though you know you should definitely review!**_

_**Disclaimer: Is there any point in these? Of course we don't own the material, otherwise we wouldn't be posting on a website a-holes. We'd be making buttloads of cash. Duhh.**_

**As Meaningless as a Mudblood**

**herointhecrowd3**

The stars swept over the night as wind picks up grains of sand and sweeps them out over the desert. The stars seemed to twist and blend and mingle. Those bloody stars kissed as though they were drunk virgins swinging from pub to pub in search for the night's lay.

That was the sort of comment Hermione would say was 'completely inappropriate for the situation and should be stricken from the minds belonging to the innocent ears of the masses.' She was always saying things of that nature. Drove Ronald Weasley barking mad too. Barking mad for her, that is.

A small smile spread out over his ruddy face. If ever there was a positive thing to be said of Ron's physical appearance (sans his eyes, hair and body), it was that he had a fantastic smile. And then, he was chuckling. That chuckle became a dark, humorless laugh. That humorless laugh became darker, silent sobs of the most unimaginable pain on earth.

In his mind was the memory of a young woman clad in the most beautiful lavender dress on the face of the earth. Her hair was done up in a knot of perfectly messy curls, her eyes glistening with the joy of the perfect night and the tears of the man who ruined it. Her hands trembled at her sides, balling into fists, releasing then into thin flat lines. Her brow is furrowed with pain and fury and indecision. But most of all? That brow is furrowed with heart throbbing love. When Ron had seen Hermione that way, he could not help but stare, mouth open. He was looking at the most beautiful sight he would ever have the grave to look upon. It was morbid to look at her that way, to see her that way when she was hurt. But he couldn't help it. Because that painful little girl, that furious woman was paying attention to him. Not Viktor Krum. Him. Ronald Weasley.

Now that same little girl was laid up in a bed just inside the cottage, a dirty, dirty insult scratched into her perfect skin for all eternity, to remind her of the terrible people she had once pretended never existed. But she wasn't a little girl anymore, was she? She was as much a woman as he was a man now.

Now the image was broken. His perfect, innocent angel was stolen from his side. Instead of the perfect purple dress, she wore damp, blood soaked clothes. Instead of intricate knots, her hair was matted with dirt and her own tears. Her eyes were open, but they might as well have been closed. They were filled with the dead souls of her parents' forgotten faces, memories she would never retrieve, things she would never do, a life she would never live. Never again. Her brow was not furrowed with anything. Her tear streaked face was bare of emotion, and he would have given anything to make that image leave him.

Fleur had promised Hermione would be alright by now. She had said that she was shocked and needed to rest, but other than the words written along her arm, her injuries were minor and she would be fine. But it had been hours, days. She should be walking and talking and living. But she had lain in that bed since they had brought her in. He had not seen her yet; he was too much of a coward to look into those dead eyes again and find that they were looking right past him. In a pool of her own blood, she had lost an innocence, a little piece of her soul had died. His greatest fear was that he would never be able to give her that innocence back.

A cool breeze licked the tears on his face, freezing them thoroughly where they were, but that didn't stop them. They fell harder if anything.

He remembered once that his mother had taken their family out to the beach once. It was warm that day, sunny, and the sand burned beneath his feet. He was eight years old. He would give anything to be eight years old again. But more than anything, he remembered on that day how his mother had held his hand. The water had been cold, very cold. He had been scared. Fred and George were having a right brilliant time pestering him about it too, but his mother didn't seem bothered. She had taken his attention and told him what a beautiful day it was. What a refreshing feeling the water would bring. How proud she was of him, even if he chose not to go and swim with his brothers. He had smiled up at her, feeling the genuine love of his mother, resonating from her breast. He had thanked her, moved away from her warm embrace and taken Ginny's tiny hand. He allowed her to tug him along into the freezing water which was actually not that freezing at all. No sharks came to nip at his feet, and no monster came to gobble him up. He taught his little sister to swim that day. It was one of his fondest memories.

This beach was not so different from the one he had visited oh so long ago. But something was missing and over these last few months, he had been able to identify it. What was missing was love, and by that same coin, life.

"How does it feel to know you're being abandoned, Ronald?" Only one person, other than his mother, had ever called him Ronald. He did not turn, but instead let the sudden heat of relief run through every vein in his body. The tears did not stop, his shoulders did not quit their quivering, but suddenly he did not feel so bloody alone.

Hermione did not speak again. She watched the muscles in his shoulders ripple, knowing the knife she had drove into his heart had hurt. She didn't know why she was so cruel. He had ran to defend her back at the mansion, ran to help her stand when they had landed on the beach and did not leave her side, not even to help Harry. Ran back to her broken embrace after months of no contact. But it was that damned word, the word that defined everything about that idiot. The fact that he had to come BACK, the fact that he had left to begin with. Ronald Weasley was always running away, and then finding his way back again.

Still, she did not have to be so cruel. Perhaps Harry was right. Perhaps it was time to forgive him.

She found her feet padding across the sand, feeling it sift between her toes. They were bare to the harsh cold, but she didn't mind much. After the burn she had felt in her arm only a few days ago, she would be content never to feel heat again.

But the moment she touched him, she knew that wasn't true. Her arms instinctively wrapped around his waist, subduing slightly the rippling of his abdomen. Her cheek touched the soft cotton of his thin shirt, his body heat radiating from him. If she listened close enough, she could hear his wonderful heart thudding over the brisk sound of the wind. She closed her eyes and simply breathed, feeling much warmer than she had mere seconds ago, the pain in her arm nearly disappearing.

"It hurts like hell, I can promise ya that." His voice was softer than anything she had ever heard. It reminded her of snowfall. Spearmint scented snowfall.

She nodded gently against his shoulder, sighing. "Well, now you know what a merry Christmas I had."

There was a moment of silence where neither heard anything but the wind, and Hermione thought, perhaps, she had taken it one step too far as she so often did.

"This," his voice quivered and she felt her arm muscles tightening around him, "this is what it felt like? This is what it felt like when I left?"

She paused for a moment before sighing in resignation. She was tired of being angry, tired of hurting herself, but mostly she was just tired of hurting him. She was tired of lying; she couldn't take it. Not one more day of it. "Yes Ronald. This is what it feels like to be left alone. This is what it feels like to be abandoned. This is what it feels like to have one of the biggest parts of your heart suddenly taken from you."

He shook harder now, not because he was hurting, but because he knew he had hurt her. She shook with him, remembering running through the stinging wind, not sure whether the blur of her vision was the result of countless tears or rain. She remembered the rip in her entire body as she heard the pop of his disapperation. She remembered the sudden rush of inefficiency as he looked her in the eye, his own soft brown eyes dead of emotion. The eyes she loved more than anything on earth, dead of anything akin to feeling.

Tears fell down his sculpted face and he felt like the worst and slimiest bastard ever to walk God's Earth, maybe even worse and slimier than Malfoy himself. But he didn't want this night to end this way. He didn't want her to go. He didn't want her to do to him what he had done to her countless times before. He wasn't Hermione; he wasn't as strong as she was. If she decided to go, he would fall apart and never be able to get up again.

Silence filled in the space around them. Hermione focused on the little things, focused on the synchronized crash of waves on sand, focused on the breath of the man in her arms, focused on the throbbing in her left arm.

And then, suddenly, snow fell from his mouth again. "Is there a limit to how sorry I can be for that? For leaving?"

Hermione thought for a moment. Ron could feel her smiling lips press against his shirt and knew he had said the right thing. "No, you will never ever be sorry enough for that night, Ronald Weasley. I will never ever forgive you." The sarcasm hanging on her breath was the most reassuring thing he had heard in days.

He chuckled softly, realizing both of them had stopped shaking and that the tears no longer fell. It was comforting.

"You know," Hermione's voice was quieter now, "I'm not going anywhere, Ron. I'm not leaving you." The tension that left his muscles was visible, and she almost cried tears of joy knowing how much that meant to him. Before she could even think, he had turned and was pulling her into his strong, tender arms. Their bodies collided in a way they hadn't in months, and she felt at home. She felt safe. She felt like Hermione again.

He looked down at her, relief pouring from his face. "Hermione, you are the greatest human being on Earth. You're bloody brilliant, you know. Thank you for not going, thank you for not being a git like I am." Her laughter filled his ears and he stared down into her eyes.

The lifelessness was gone; the memories of things that could have been had vanished. There was joy there. He watched hope sparkle through her eyes and felt that hope pop onto his own face. She was like a contagious firework, catching him on fire with every second glance.

It was about this time that they realized exactly how close they were, but they didn't move away. This year they had grown closer than ever, despite the gaping hole he had left when he walked away. To stand this close, to hold one another? It was like second nature.

Slowly, tortuously slowly, Hermione slid her hands up his built chest, draping her arms around his strong neck. A glance of red bloodstain awakened his senses and he remembered what had happened mere days ago. It was funny; one glance at Hermione had wiped away the memory of her lying in wretched pain and replaced that hurtful image with a new, happier, youthful one. His eyes flickered back down to the words written by knife in his angel's arm. Anger flooded him for a moment.

_MUDBLOOD_

How dare they. How dare the bastards ever speak about Hermione that way. The girl in his arms moved to pull her arm back, a blush flushing her young face. Rejection crept into her eyes. But before she could successfully pull back from him, he had wrapped a large hand around her elbow, tugging her arm back into his view.

_MUDBLOOD_

The dirty little word lay on her arm, useless, meaningless. Just dirty.

_MUDBLOOD_

It didn't suit her at all. Anger began to drain out of his body with the shake of his head.

_MUDBLOOD_

After all the trouble he had gone through trying to keep that word from touching her mind, now it was forever imprinted on her skin.

_MUDBLOOD_

And it meant absolutely nothing.

Ron began to laugh, this time with happiness filling his voice. His body rocked with the sounds of his own joy.

However, this was probably not an appropriate response.

Tears filled Hermione's eyes, and she tried so hard to pull away. But Ron wasn't letting her get away that easily. He let go of her arm and pulled her tightly against his chest, feeling her struggle for a moment before her shoulders wretched with the momentary hurt he had caused her. He loosened his hold so she could back away enough for him to see her face. He tilted her chin up, a gentle smile on his face.

"Hermione Granger, you are beautiful." Those few words silenced her without another sniffle of complaint. Perhaps it was contentment. Perhaps it was shock. But for whatever reason, Hermione fell speechless for the first time in her life.

Ron pressed his chapped lips to her eye lids, silencing the tears, sparking shivers up and down her spine. "Beautiful," he repeated, so uncharacteristically that for a moment, Hermione considered that perhaps he was an imposture, but the sound of his chuckles awoke the reality in him once more.

Ron reached down and touched her arm once more, guiding her forearm to his lips. He pressed three soft kisses along the scaring bloodstain, chuckles bubbling against her skin.

"What exactly is so funny Ronald?" She tried to straighten the shaking in her voice at the touch of his lips, but unfortunately she was unsuccessful. Ron smiled.

"Hermione, do you remember second year when we had the slug disaster?" Hermione rolled her eyes at the memory, a smile sparking her features.

"Today was like swallowing slugs. Like I was trying so hard to get to you, protect you from those bloody bastards, but I couldn't, you know? It was like swallowing slugs, because it was pointless. No reason for it. I mean, don't get me wrong," he bent his shoulders sheepishly in reaction to her facial expression once he'd stated running to save her was 'pointless.' "Saving you from pain wasn't pointless at all. But trying to protect you from stupid gits with stupid opinions? That is. I tried so bloody hard to protect you from a word. But that's all it is Hermione. It's just a word. The word itself doesn't mean a right thing. Not a thing. Blimey Hermione, I just didn't want their filthy thoughts to have a go at your brain but now that I see the word there? I know it's just a word. You're so much better than it. So it doesn't really matter at all. It doesn't matter what they say, what they call you. 'Cause you're Hermione, you know? You're better than that dirty word."

Hermione stared at him for a moment. Then, she laid a gentle hand on his stubbled jaw. "Ronald Weasley," her voice quivered, "You are an amazing man, do you know that? Can you imagine that? You are, without a doubt, the best man I know and why I ever doubted you I'll never be quite sure. You are incredible Ron. You're my best friend. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, but I know that wherever we go, I will never leave you and you will never leave me. How I ever did without you, I'll never know. Ron…"

She was rambling and it was just too adorable, just too bloody Hermione to resist. Laughing, he placed his hands on either side of her faced and pulled her face to his, their lips colliding. Finally.

He hadn't really meant to do it. He never really meant to kiss her there, on the beach in front of Shell's Cottage, but it all just felt so right. They stood together, holding one another together, relishing in the knowledge that no matter who tried to separate them, they would be together. The dark behind Ron's eye lids revealed that image he had stored away once upon a time. But he had been right. Hermione was not the same girl she had been standing on the stairs during the Yule Ball. She was just as much a woman as he was a man. Comparatively, he found the other picture, the one he had the pleasure of seeing mere moments before. Her eyes alight with hope, joy, love.

Her eyes were not dead. Her dreams were not gone. He was everything she had ever wanted. He didn't need her to say this, but when she pulled away for only a moment to see his eyes once more, it slipped out in three little words. "I love you."

They didn't know where Harry would take them. They didn't need to. Because their eyes were no longer lifeless and meaningless. Their eyes no longer reflected the labels they had bore for so long.

All that was left was Ron and Hermione. They had brought the joy back into one another's lives, and in those dark days, that was good enough for them.


End file.
